Ridgefield, Connecticut

“ George Whitefield, in one of his sermons, gave them the following character: “I have found,” said he, “the people of Connecticut the wisest of any upon the continent; they are the best friends and the worst enemies; they are hair-brained bigots on all sides, and they may be compared to the horse and mule, without bit and bridle. ”

“ A terrible weight of prejudice rested upon the Rogerenes who first planted that seed in Connecticut, whose outshoot, ingrafted into the constitution of every State in the Union, has become a great tree of religious liberty spreading its branches over all the land, under the shadow of which not only we but immigrants from every clime sit with delight. ”

“ Thus has Connecticut, by contention and folly, impoverished and kept in obscurity the most fruitful colony in America, to support the fame and grandeur of Boston and New-York among the trading nations of Europe. When I view the less fertile soil of Boston, the conscience of merchants, the pride of the pretended Gospel ministers, the blindness of bigotry, and the mercantile ignorance of farmers, I forgive Boston, New-York, and Rhode-Island, but condemn Connecticut. ”

“ Our heroes must be taken from that which above all others was our heroic age. Should we thus commemorate the impetuous gallantry of Putnam, the noble death of Hale, the courtly eloquence of Johnson, the judicial power of Ellsworth? All these were sons of Connecticut, born upon her soil. No. She chose one born and bred to manhood in another State; not trained at her college, nor at her schools; not at any schools. She sought to put the form and features of Roger Sherman into marble, to show to all time what qualities and achievements the people of Connecticut hold in most honor. ”

“ Though Litchfield is the youngest county of Connecticut, yet in 1766 it set an example to the rest worthy of imitation. The province had always been greatly pestered by a generation of men called “quacks,” who, with a few Indian nostrums, a lancet, a glister-pipe, rhubarb, treacle-water mixed with Roman bombast of vena cava and vena porta, attacked fevers, nervous disorders, and broken bones, and, by the grace of perseverance, subdued Nature, and helped their patients to a passage to the world of spirits before they were ready. ”

“ Difficulty with Rhode Island was caused by the conflict between that colony’s charter and the Connecticut charter regarding the western boundary of Rhode Island; and the encroachment of outlying Connecticut settlements on Dutch territory, and the attempt to extend the boundaries of New York to the Connecticut river, gave rise to other disputes. ”

“ Henry Mason, his mother. Craig had never been very strong, and during his college course at Yale, had 10applied himself so closely to study that his health had suffered from it, and soon after he was graduated he had come to Ridgefield, hoping much from the pure air and quiet he would find there. Nor could he have found a more favorable spot for nerves unstrung and a tired brain.
Just where Ridgefield is does not matter. There is such a place, and it lies on the Boston and Albany Railroad, which keeps it in touch with the world outside and saves it from stagnation. ”

“ It is a record also of the loyalists of the town, who suffered even more for their King and Cause than did the patriots, since defeat and banishment with confiscation of their estates was their final portion.
Redding (formerly written Reading) is one of the “hill towns,” of Connecticut, seven miles from Danbury and thirteen from Bridgeport, the two “shire towns,” of Fairfield County. Its people have always been noted for brain force and intelligence. The number of its sons who have won high places in the professions, in art, literature, diplomacy, the army and navy is something remarkable. ”

“ There had been a welding together of sympathies in Ridgefield such as had not been known there since '62. The son of Mr. Horween, who sat at a mahogany desk in the luxurious general manager's office of the Ridgefield Wire Company, was a tentmate of the son of Hans Bergstrom, who ran a lathe in the same concern; and Mrs. ”

“ In the Rhode Island charter, therefore, that colony’s western boundary was made as agreed upon, the “clause in a late grant” to Connecticut notwithstanding. [24] Connecticut, however, which had now become even more reckless in its career of land-grabbing than Massachusetts, repudiated its agent’s act, and undertook to enforce its claims to Rhode Island’s richest territory. [25] Not only was Connecticut’s attitude selfish and unjust, but the dispute could not fail to add another legitimate reason for the exercise of imperial control by England. ”

“ I have already said that Ridgefield was on the great thoroughfare between Boston and New York, for the day of steamers and railroads had not dawned. Even the mania for turnpikes, which ere long overspread New England, had not yet arrived. The stage-coaches took four days to make the trip of two hundred miles between the two great cities. In winter, during the furious snow-storms, the journey was often protracted to seven, eight, or ten days. With such public conveyances, great people—for even then the world was divided into the great and little, as it is now—travelled in their own carriages. ”

“ Such numbers were constantly emigrating to New England, in consequence of the persecution of the Puritans, that the people of Dorchester, Watertown, and Newtown, began to be much straitened by the accession of new planters.
By those who had been in Connecticut they had received intelligence of the excellent meadows on the river; they therefore determined to remove, and once more brave the dangers and hardships of making settlements in a dreary wilderness. ”

“ The unfaltering trust of the Rogerenes in an all-powerful and all-loving God is to be shown remaining as firm as though John Rogers had returned to them unscathed, and this unswerving trust in God’s promises, under circumstances calculated to shake such a trust to the uttermost, is to be attested over and over by the records of Connecticut. ”

“ It also had its boundary disputes with Massachusetts,
with Rhode Island--for Connecticut took the Narragansett River of its
charter to be the bay of that name--and with New York, which, by the
Duke of York's new patent, issued on the recovery of that province from
the Dutch in 1674, reached the Connecticut River. During England's war
with Holland, 1672-74, all the colonies stood in some fear of Dutch
attacks.
[1685]
Rhode Island had worse troubles than Connecticut. ”

“ The Connecticut is seen sweeping onward like a king, through its fair domain, amid the spires of numerous towns and villages, while, by the aid of a glass, the sails of the vessels in the port of Hartford, and the movements in the streets, are distinctly visible.
The prospect from the South Rock, in the vicinity of the farm-house, though of less extent, is one of extreme beauty, and presents, as in a vivid, glowing picture, the grouping of the objects more immediately beneath you,—lake, copse, villa, cultivated lawn, and crowning tower. ”

“ Let such remember, that when the Ethiopian shall change his skin, when the Leopard shall change his spots, and when bitter fountains shall send forth sweet water, then will those who flatter the people with their tongues, and deceive them with their lips seek their happiness. Such are some of the measures resorted to by those who have sworn in their wrath that Connecticut shall be revolutionized. Finding all these ineffectual, and that the good sence and virtue of Connecticut has hitherto opposed an inseparable barrier to all their plans, they now exclaim Connecticut has no Constitution. ”

“ The second county in the Kingdom of Connecticote, and the most mountainous in the whole province, is Litchfield, which produces abundance of wheat, butter, cheese, iron ore, &c., and has many iron works, foundries, and furnaces. It contains the following fourteen towns:
Litchfield is watered by two small rivers. An elegant [Pg 145] meeting-house and decent court-house, with steeple and bells, ornament the square, where three roads meet. The best street is one mile long. It resembles Dartford. The township is twelve miles square, and forms five parishes, one of which is episcopal. ”

“ Sampson Occom, by the Charity of England, have joined in the same work.—To the General Assembly, and the Consociation of Connecticut, Dr. Wheelock and his associates are much beholden for their success in converting the poor benighted savages in the howling wilderness. ”

“ Massachusetts soon followed in the name of the Atherton company. And presently Plymouth joined herself to the roll of Rhode Island’s enemies by advancing a claim to Aquidneck itself. Connecticut sought to strengthen her pretensions by asserting that the disputed territory was now hers by right of conquest. Thus far the sturdy little colony had held its ground and grown and prospered in the midst of enemies. Would she continue to hold it? Humanity itself was concerned in the answer, for of all the powers and kingdoms of the earth she alone was founded upon the principle of perfect toleration. ”

“ At each new stage of Western development, the people have had to grapple with larger areas, with bigger combinations. The little colony of Massachusetts veterans that settled at Marietta received a land grant as large as the State of Rhode Island. The band of Connecticut pioneers that followed Moses Cleaveland to the Connecticut Reserve occupied a region as large as the parent State. The area which settlers of New England stock occupied on the prairies of northern Illinois surpassed the combined area of Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Rhode Island. ”

“ These townships he granted to proprietors belonging to the four provinces of New-England, one township to sixty proprietors; and took his fees for the same, according to royal appointment. Every township was, in twelve years time, to have sixty families residing in it. In 1769 there were settled on this piece of land 30,000 souls, at a very great expence; and many townships contained 100 families. The New-Yorkers found means to deceive the King, and obtained a decree that the East boundary of New-York, after passing Connecticut and Massachusets-Bay, should be Connecticut river. ”

“ Ten thousand acres of land were set apart for new settlers at the rate of a hundred acres to each man—the new settlers to be approved by the Assembly. Rhode Island threatened to appeal to the King. Connecticut declared that she was ready to meet the appeal. Attempts at compromise were made by both parties. Connecticut proposed to fix the line at Coweset, the modern East Greenwich. Rhode Island offered to allow Connecticut to dispose of half the unpurchased lands in the Province if the settlers would accept the jurisdiction of Rhode Island. ”

“ The dimensions of Connecticut, according to the present allowed extent, are from the Sound on the south to the Massachusets line on the north, about sixty miles; and from Biram River and New-York line, on the west, to Narraganset-Bay, Rhode-Island, and Massachusets-Bay on the east, upon an average about one hundred miles. It is computed to contain 5,000,000 acres.
Many creeks and inlets, bays and rivers, intersect the coast. Three of the last, dividing the colony into as many parts, I shall particularly notice. They all run from north to south. ”

“ THE Connecticut is justly named “the beautiful river,” and its valley “the garden of New England.” Issuing from the heart of the northern wilderness, it spreads boundless fertility throughout its stately march to the sea. It is not a rapid river, but flows with an even and majestic tide through its long avenue of mountains. Radiant envoy of the skies, its mission is peace on earth and good-will toward men. As it advances the confluent streams flock to it from their mountain homes. On one side the Green Mountains of Vermont send their hundred tributaries to swell its flood ”

“ While the colonists were thus prosecuting the business of settlement in New England, the Right Honorable James, Marquis of Hamilton, obtained a grant from the Council of Plymouth April 20, 1635, of all that tract of country which lies between Connecticut River and Narraganset River and harbor, from the mouth of each of said rivers northward sixty miles into the country. ”

“ Anyone who drives westward on the Jacob’s Ladder route from Springfield passes first through the open, rolling country of the Connecticut Lowland. Hills are in sight, but they seem remote until he leaves Westfield, and there the upland rises before him like a 900-foot wall. The road uses the gateway cut in the wall by the Westfield River, and the drive westward towards the headwaters of the river is one of the best known scenic attractions in western Massachusetts. But a greater treat awaits the person who will venture southward on the road along the Little Westfield River. ”

“ The French philosophers say that every great capital has similar divisions; West End being always the residence of the aristocracy, and East End of the canaille.
Ridgefield, being a village, had a right to follow its own whim; and therefore West Lane, instead of being the aristocratic end of the place, was really rather the low end. It constituted, in fact, what was called Down-town, in distinction from the more eastern and northern section, called Up-town. In this latter portion, and about the middle of the main street, was the Up-town school, the leading seminary of the village ”